Spinning cone columns are used in a form of low temperature vacuum
steam distillation
Steam distillation is a separation process that consists in distilling water together with other volatile and non-volatile components. The steam from the boiling water carries the vapor of the volatiles to a condenser; both are cooled and ret ...
to gently extract volatile chemicals from liquid foodstuffs while minimising the effect on the taste of the product. For instance, the columns can be used to remove some of the
alcohol
Alcohol most commonly refers to:
* Alcohol (chemistry), an organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom
* Alcohol (drug), an intoxicant found in alcoholic drinks
Alcohol may also refer to:
Chemicals
* Ethanol, one of sev ...
from wine, 'off' smells from cream, and to capture
aroma compound
An aroma compound, also known as an odorant, aroma, fragrance or flavoring, is a chemical compound that has a smell or odor. For an individual chemical or class of chemical compounds to impart a smell or fragrance, it must be sufficiently vol ...
s that would otherwise be lost in
coffee processing
Coffee production is the industrial process of converting the raw fruit of the coffee plant into the finished coffee. The coffee cherry has the fruit or pulp removed leaving the seed or bean which is then dried. While all green coffee is pro ...
.
Mechanism
The columns are made of stainless steel. Conical vanes are attached alternately to the wall of the column and to a central rotating shaft. The product is poured in at the top under vacuum, and steam is pumped into the column from below. The vanes provide a large surface area over which volatile compounds can evaporate into the steam, and the rotation ensures a thin layer of the product is constantly moved over the moving cone. It typically takes 20 seconds for the liquid to move through the column, and industrial columns might process . The temperature and pressure can be adjusted depending on the compounds targeted.
Wine controversy
Improvements in
viticulture
Viticulture (from the Latin word for ''vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ra ...
and warmer vintages have led to increasing levels of sugar in wine grapes, which have translated to higher levels of alcohol - which can reach over 15%
ABV
Alcohol by volume (abbreviated as ABV, abv, or alc/vol) is a standard measure of how much alcohol (ethanol) is contained in a given volume of an alcoholic beverage (expressed as a volume percent). It is defined as the number of millilitres (mL) ...
in
Zinfandel
Zinfandel (also known as Primitivo) is a variety of black-skinned wine grape. The variety is grown in over 10 percent of California vineyards. DNA analysis has revealed that it is genetically equivalent to the Croatian grapes Crljenak Kašte ...
s from California. Some producers feel that this unbalances their wine, and use spinning cones to reduce the alcohol by 1-2 percentage points. In this case the wine is passed through the column once to distill out the most volatile aroma compounds which are then put to one side while the wine goes through the column a second time at higher temperature to extract alcohol. The aroma compounds are then mixed back into the wine. Some producers such as Joel Peterson of Ravenswood argue that technological "fixes" such as spinning cones remove a sense of
terroir
(, ; from ''terre'', "land") is a French term used to describe the environmental factors that affect a crop's phenotype, including unique environment contexts, farming practices and a crop's specific growth habitat. Collectively, these conte ...
from the wine; if the wine has the tannins and other components to balance 15% alcohol, Peterson argues that it should be accepted on its own terms.
The use of spinning cones, and other technologies such as reverse osmosis, was banned in the EU until recently, although for many years they could freely be used in wines imported into the EU from certain New World wine producing countries such as Australia and the USA. In November 2007, the Wine Standards Branch (WSB) of the UK's
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banned the sale of a wine called Sovio, made from Spanish grapes that would normally produce wines of 14% ABV. Sovio runs 40-50% of the wine over spinning cones to reduce the alcohol content to 8%, which means that under EU law it could not be sold as wine as it was below 8.5%; above that, under the rules prevailing at the time, it would be banned because spinning cones could not be used in EU winemaking.
Subsequently, the EU legalized dealcoholization with a 2% adjustment limit in its Code of Winemaking Practices, publishing that in its Commission Regulation (EC) No 606/2009 and stipulating that the dealcoholization must be accomplished by ''physical separation techniques'' which would embrace the spinning cone method.
More recently, in
International Organisation of Vine and Wine
The International Organisation of Vine and Wine (french: Organisation Internationale de la vigne et du vin; OIV) is an intergovernmental organization which deals with technical and scientific aspects of viticulture and winemaking. and OIV-OENO 394B-2012 of June 22, 2012 EU recommended winemaking procedures were modified to permit use of the spinning cone column and membrane techniques such as reverse osmosis on wine, subject to a limitation on the adjustment. That limitation is currently under review following the proposal by some EU members that it be eliminated altogether. The limitation is applicable only to products formally labeled as "wine".
See also
*
Winemaking
Winemaking or vinification is the production of wine, starting with the selection of the fruit, its fermentation into alcohol, and the bottling of the finished liquid. The history of wine-making stretches over millennia. The science of wine and w ...
*
Distillation
Distillation, or classical distillation, is the process of separating the components or substances from a liquid mixture by using selective boiling and condensation, usually inside an apparatus known as a still. Dry distillation is the heating ...